EP0505836 describes an angular grinding wheel for simultaneously grinding a cylindrical surface and a radial end surface, or shoulder, of a workpiece. Much of the disclosure in EP 0505836 is concerned with the gauging and dressing of the two perpendicular grinding surfaces Ga and Gb around the periphery of the wheel so as to ensure that as the surface Ga removes material from a cylindrical region of the workpiece and the latter moves in a direction parallel to the Z-axis, just the right amount of material is ground away from the end face of the adjoining shoulder as the proximate cylindrical region is ground by the perpendicular face Ga, so as to leave a correctly sized and ground shoulder. In order to achieve this, reference surfaces RSa and RSb are provided on the grinding wheel and complex gauging and dressing steps are required to ensure that the surface Gb is of sufficient extent (measured parallel to the X-axis) as to extend radially beyond the shoulder so as to ensure that no undercutting of the shoulder can occur.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an alternative grinding method and apparatus for angle head grinding which obviates the need for much of the complex gauging and wheel dressing such as is required using a process and apparatus such as described in EP0505836.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus which allows angle head grinding to be performed without the need for special wheels and which can be performed without the need for movement of the workpiece parallel to the Z-axis.